Mosquito ingestion of antibodies against mosquito midgut microbiota improves conversion of ookinetes to oocysts for Plasmodium falciparum, but not P. yoelii.

The mosquito midgut is a site of complex interactions between the mosquito, the malaria parasite and the resident bacterial flora. In laboratory experiments, we observed significant enhancement of Plasmodium falciparum oocyst production when Anopheles gambiae (Diptera: Culicidae) mosquitoes were membrane-fed on infected blood containing gametocytes from in vitro cultures mixed with sera from rabbits immunized with A. gambiae midguts.